Guide to the Vision Zero Dashboard

What data is included?

Several data sources are used in the Vision Zero dashboard, with data on each topic coming from a different source. The topics presented in the dashboard are based on a Safe System approach to achieving Portland’s Vision Zero goal. These include:

1. Safe streets
2. Safe speeds
3. Crash statistics and deadly crash response

Go to the Vision Zero dashboard

Safe streets

Data on safer streets projects and safety infrastructure comes from PBOT project teams and project managers.  Learn more about PBOT’s traffic safety projects online. 

Several safety infrastructure improvements are city-wide and lead to systematic changes over time. These improvements can include changes to traffic signals, restriping lanes, or pedestrian crossings.

• Learn about Pedestrian Head Starts, also known as leading pedestrian intervals. This dashboard includes city-wide data summaries of Pedestrian Head Starts.
• Learn about left turn traffic calming.
• Learn about raised pedestrian crossings in our street design toolkit.

Safe speeds

Speed limit reductions in Portland are requested by PBOT and officially approved by the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT). 

Oregon state law allows Portland to use speed and intersection safety cameras only on its most dangerous streets — our High Crash Network. Speeding violations data is aggregated by zip code and camera location for data privacy.

Traffic citation tallies by month are gathered by the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) Strategic Services Division. Access PPB open data resources online.

Crash statistics

For PBOT’s Vision Zero work and this dashboard we analyze the following crashes:

• All deadly and serious injury crashes for all modes – pedestrians, people on bikes, people on motorcycles, and people in motor vehicles.
• All other crashes involving pedestrians and people on bikes, regardless of severity.

We explore the circumstances of all pedestrian and bicycle crashes because there are fewer pedestrian and bicycle crashes involving serious injury or death. And the difference between a minor scratch and a life altering injury can be a matter of seconds.

PBOT does not own crash data nor maintain it. The summary statistics we provide are limited to what other agencies collect and report. The Portland Police Bureau (PPB) is the custodian of crash investigation information. All deadly crash data in the past two years is preliminary and part of ongoing investigations. These data are subject to change. Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) is the custodian of official crash records, which is the most complete set of crash data available. ODOT releases the official crash records over 18 months after the end of each calendar year. Much of ODOT’s official crash data relies on self-reporting. Learn more about how PBOT uses crash data online.

Not all traffic-related deaths or injuries are included in ODOT’s official record. This is in accordance with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's FARS/CRSS Coding and Validation Manual, the American National Standards Institute's Manual on Classification of Motor Vehicle Traffic Accidents, and ODOT’s Motor Vehicle Traffic Crash Analysis and Code Manual. Deadly crash data excludes people who die: 

• More than 30 days after a crash.
• Intentionally (suicide)
• In an act of homicide (a person intentionally crashes into another person)
• From a prior medical event (e.g., a heart attack or drug overdose)
• In a crash in a parking lot
• In a crash not involving a motor vehicle. Cars, trucks, and buses are examples of motor vehicles. Trains, the MAX light rail, and the Portland Streetcar are excluded because they operate exclusively on rail. Hence, a traffic death involving a pedestrian and the MAX light rail would be excluded. Any crash involving a person on a bike and/or a pedestrian would be excluded if no motor vehicle is involved.

Injury crash data excludes people who are injured:

• In a crash in a parking lot
• In a crash not involving a motor vehicle, as described above.

Following deadly crashes, PBOT follows a protocol of actions to raise awareness and respond to the tragedy of people killed on our streets. Learn more about PBOT’s deadly crash response, including information about roadway changes at deadly crash locations.

Go to the Vision Zero dashboard

How to use the dashboard

We have designed the dashboard using the Tableau platform. It shows a lot of data without having to change any of the settings. However, this guide helps you use the dashboard to explore the data in different ways. 

Once you feel ready to use the dashboard, click the link below: 

Go to the Vision Zero dashboard

Each section in the dashboard is fully interactive, meaning you can click, select, filter, and hover over any items in a map or chart to change the display or show more information.

Legends

Legends are there to help provide detail on colors, shapes, and sizes of lines or markings on a map or chart. Legends are typically at the top right corner of the display. Click on any category in a legend to highlight only that category in the map or chart. To bring back all categories to the display, click any blank space in the legend. To the right are some examples of legends from the Dashboard.

Filters

Filtering is a powerful tool on the Vision Zero dashboard. Not all maps and charts have filter capabilities, but where they do, you can filter the data that is displayed. Filters allow you to select time periods or categories that are shown. There are two main types of filters in the dashboard: sliders and checklists. You can isolate data by using the slider where available to select a range of dates by moving the half circles along the line. You can also click on the dates to type in the date range you would like to display on the map. This isolates the data you want to display and filters out the rest.

Checklists

Another filter type in the dashboard is the checklist. In the example here, you can deselect the categories you don't want to display in the map or chart. The example here is a drop-down checklist that will display when you click on the drop-down arrow pictured at right. Deselect the items you don't want to display on the map. To add data back to the display, click on the appropriate check boxes.

Navigate for more detail

All maps allow you to see more detail using the map tools at the top left corner of all maps, shown in the image here. Map tools are zoom in (+) and out (-), home symbol to take you back to the default zoom, and a triangle at the bottom that has more options. The additional options from left to right are to zoom to a selected area (square with magnifying glass), navigating tool, and three types of selection tools to select data in a square, circle, or freeform shape.

If you use the selection tools to select data on the map, you can release the selection by clicking anywhere outside of the selected area and all data will return to the display.

Throughout the page, the PBOT or Vision Zero will take you back to our main websites. Other icons in the dashboard let you sign up for various updates and opportunities. 

To start exploring the dashboard, click on the link below:

Go to the Vision Zero dashboard

Alternative chart and table formats

Section 1: Safe streets

High Crash Network safety improvements

The High Crash Network represents the highest-crash streets in Portland. These streets are only 8% of Portland roadways and account for 62% of deadly crashes (2017-2021). The High Crash Network streets in areas with higher proportions of people of color and lower median incomes receive priority for traffic safety investments.

This map does not include all safety projects in planning or construction phases. Learn more about PBOT’s traffic safety projects online. 

Pedestrian Head Start signals

Pedestrian Head Start signals give pedestrians a walk signal before drivers get a green light. Pedestrians can begin crossing the street before drivers start to turn. This makes the person driving more likely to see and stop for the pedestrian. Learn more about Pedestrian Head Start signals online.

The dashboard includes a color coded table categorizing signal installations on High Crash Network streets or on other streets in Portland. The table colors transition from teal to orange, representing the increasing number of signals installations. Orange is for the greatest number of signal installations. Teal is for the lowest number of signal installations.

Go to the Vision Zero dashboard

Section 2: Safe speeds

Speeding is a top contributing factor to crashes across the Portland region. Even small increases in driving speeds can significantly increase both the risk of crashing and the severity of injuries when a collision occurs. 42% of deadly crashes from 2017 to 2021 were because of speed. This section of the dashboard includes data visualizations and summaries of speed limit reductions, safety camera data, and traffic citations in Portland.

Speed limit reductions

In Portland, speed limits must account for people traveling in different ways, including pedestrians and people biking, driving, using mobility devices, skateboarding, etc. Learn about how PBOT sets speed limits online.

Speed and intersection safety cameras

Portland uses speed and intersection safety cameras on the most dangerous streets. This dashboard summarizes all speeding violations recorded by safety cameras. Based on Oregon state law, a traffic citation is issued for speeding violations only when the conditions of Oregon revised statutes 810.434 and 810.437 are met.

Learn about speed and intersection safety cameras online.

The dashboard includes a pie chart of speeding violations recorded by speed safety and intersection cameras in Portland. Violations are tallied by the location of the vehicle registration. Portions of the pie chart are sized based on the percentage of all speeding violations. Vehicle registration categories include vehicles registered in Multnomah County, vehicles registered in the Portland Metro Area outside of Multnomah County, and vehicles registered outside of the Portland Metro Area.

This data has been summarized as a table.

The dashboard includes an area chart of the number of speeding violations recorded by speed and intersection safety cameras in Portland. The locations of fixed speed safety cameras are labeled with the street and closest cross street. All intersection safety cameras are combined. Speed and intersection cameras recorded 94,184 speeding violations from 2019 - 2022.

This data has been summarized as a table.

Traffic citations

The Traffic Division of the Portland Police Bureau began regular shifts again in June of 2023, after two years of limited capacity. The traffic division focuses on enforcement of dangerous behaviors that contribute to fatal and serious injury crashes such as speeding and driving while intoxicated. Learn more about the Traffic Division online.

The dashboard describes the total traffic offense citations from the Portland Police Bureau Traffic Division. The table includes the total traffic offense citations, the percentage of speeding citation ions, and count of driving under the influence of intoxicants (DUII) arrests. Broken down by month and year.

Go to the Vision Zero dashboard

Section 3: Crash statistics

This section of the dashboard provides interactive visualizations of crash data summaries. Learn more about crashes trends in Portland online.

The Vision Zero program summarizes, analyzes, and maps data of specific crashes within in the public right-of-way: 

• Deadly and serious injury crashes involving a motor vehicle. 
• All crashes involving pedestrians and/or people on bicycles and a motor vehicle. 

Learn more about how we use crash data. 

Following deadly crashes, PBOT follows a protocol of actions to raise awareness and respond to the tragedy of people killed on our streets. Learn more about PBOT’s deadly crash response, including information about roadway changes at deadly crash locations.

Traffic deaths

The dashboard shows an interactive line chart of traffic death trends in Portland from January 1, 2018, to April 15, 2024. Broken down by travel mode and year. Travel modes are pedestrians shown as orange. People on bicycles shown as teal. People on motorcycles shown as yellow. And people in motor vehicles shown as blue. Total traffic deaths are shown in grey.

Vision Zero crashes

Vision Zero crashes include all traffic deaths, serious injuries, and bicycle and pedestrian injuries of any severity reported by the Oregon Department of Transportation.

The dashboard includes an interactive stacked bar chart of all Vision Zero crashes from 2014 to 2021 categorized by injury severity. With a option to select for travel mode. Traffic deaths are shown in black. Severe injuries in orange. All other bicycle injuries in teal. And all other pedestrian injuries in yellow. Preliminary data on fatal crashes with the total traffic deaths from January 1, 2022 to April 15, 2023 are shown in dark grey.

Crash map

The interactive map in this section of the dashboard shows the number of Vision Zero crashes between 2014 to 2021. And the most recent years of deadly crashes. Crash data on the dashboard includes the location of traffic deaths, serious injury crashes, all injury crashes for people on bicycles and pedestrians.

Go to the Vision Zero dashboard